NEW CASTLE, N.Y. — The white clapboard colonial-style house at 4 Bittersweet Lane in this exclusive town is special for two reasons.

It is the picture-perfect home of the domestic doyenne Sandra Lee, whose redesign and redecorating work on the two-story home overlooking a scenic lily pond has landed a string of splashy magazine features.

It is also the residence of Ms. Lee’s companion, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, and therefore the three-acre property has fortresslike security, with state troopers sitting sentry in black trucks out front, and small signs popping out of the lovely landscaping warning, “Premises patrolled by New York State Police.”

Add to this duality the news that the town this month raised the annual property taxes on the home by more than $8,000 — to $36,500 — and you have the basis of a political imbroglio on bucolic Bittersweet Lane.

The increase has a connection to Ms. Lee’s role as a personality for the Food Network and the Cooking Channel, and to her various allusions to how she converted a dated, musty house, which she bought in 2008 for $1.2 million, into a cozy haven for her and the governor. The allusions, made in interviews with newspapers and magazines, apparently alerted town officials that a reassessment might be warranted.

Anyone who has listened to the typical suburban conversations about high taxes and property assessments — especially in a place like Westchester County, where taxes are among the highest in the nation — knows that homeowners often get reassessed after renovations made under work permits issued by the town.

This did not happen in Ms. Lee’s case, because she did not apply for permits for her redesign work.

Mr. Cuomo’s campaign claimed that the new property assessment was politically motivated, since the home had not been reassessed by the town in the six years that Ms. Lee owned the home, while the town was under Democratic leadership. After a new town supervisor, Rob Greenstein, was elected last year on the Republican ticket, reassessing the home, which Ms. Lee calls Lily Pond, had suddenly become a priority, Mr. Cuomo’s campaign complained.

“Welcome to election year politics in a Republican town in a Republican county run by a county executive who is notorious for playing little political games,” said Peter E. Kauffmann, a Cuomo campaign spokesman, in an email.

Enter Rob Astorino, a Republican challenging Mr. Cuomo for the governor’s office this year. Mr. Astorino is the county executive here in Westchester, and his camp seized upon the governor’s repeated efforts to make property tax relief a central tenet of his administration and his re-election campaign.

Mr. Astorino suggested in an interview on Thursday that Ms. Lee and Mr. Cuomo had been operating under a double standard when it came to getting permits.

“Everybody has to go through the process, I guess, except him,” he said.

Mr. Astorino also called on Mr. Cuomo to allow town assessors to inspect the interior of the house (the exterior has already been scrutinized), saying that anything less would amount to a cover-up.

“New Yorkers need to know if their governor is a tax cheat,” Mr. Astorino said. “The only way to know is to open those doors.”

Mr. Cuomo, appearing at an elementary school in Peekskill on Thursday, was asked by a reporter about the reassessment. While he did not address specifics, he said he did not know if an assessor had been turned away, or if a visit inside the house was even needed.

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Sandra Lee's renovations to her house have been the subject of several news and magazine articles.CreditSpencer Platt/Getty Images

“I don’t know how the town system works itself,” Mr. Cuomo said. “And every Westchester resident I talk to says we have to get the property taxes down.”

Earlier this week, Mr. Astorino needled the governor in a satirical video shown during the annual Legislative Correspondents Association revue in Albany.

In it, Mr. Astorino, playing himself as a henpecked suburban husband, is harangued by his wife, Sheila, who wants a new kitchen.

“Sandra Lee has a gorgeous kitchen,” Sheila Astorino says in the video, to which Mr. Astorino, in character and wearing an undershirt, responds, “You got to get permits for this stuff.”

Mr. Kauffmann responded in an email that “Rob Astorino still doesn’t get that his county of Westchester has the highest property taxes in the nation — he should do the job he’s paid to do and lower property taxes.”

Messages left for Ms. Lee, through her spokeswoman, were not returned, and a state trooper prevented a reporter from knocking on the door of her home Thursday evening.

The brouhaha was precipitated by an article last month in The Journal News, of Westchester, which quoted a New Castle official concluding that Ms. Lee probably needed work permits for the conversions described in the articles about the home.

The town assessor, Philip M. Platz, said that in late May, he was denied access to the home for an interior inspection, but was allowed to walk onto the property for an exterior inspection, accompanied by a police sergeant.

Mr. Platz said on Thursday that the town kept no fixed schedule in reassessing homes, but conducted reassessments after hearing about homeowner improvements, whether from building permits, tattletale neighbors or magazine spreads.

“It was in the paper,” he said, about Ms. Lee’s remodeling projects. “I read the paper.”

Mr. Greenstein, the town supervisor, said officials had followed protocol, not politics, in issuing the reassessment.

He added that although he chose to run for supervisor on the Republican line, he remained a longtime registered Democrat, and was sworn into office at the beginning of the year by Hillary Rodham Clinton, a Democrat who happens to live in Chappaqua, a hamlet within the town.

The Clintons, it bears mentioning, have obtained permits for renovations in the past, and have had their property reassessed as a result.

Ordering property valuations for high-profile residents is a delicate situation for local municipalities, Mr. Greenstein said.

“You love the fact that they live in your town, and you don’t want to hurt them, especially when these political issues come up,” he said. “But by the same token, you have to make sure you treat everybody fairly.”

The last thing he wanted was to be in a position of angering the governor, he said, adding, “This is one political battle I would rather not be involved in.”

Thomas Kaplan and Jesse McKinley contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: Decorating and Design Meet Taxation and Politics Where Cuomo Lives. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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